Other Artists

GREAT LAKE SWIMMERS NEW ALBUM A FOREST OF ARMS RELEASED APRIL 21ST

2015.03.21

A Forest Of Arms is thesixth album from Tony Dekker’s Great Lake Swimmers and the follow up to 2012’s New Wild Everywhere. With a surging rhythm section, razor sharp violin, and flourishing banjo and guitars, Dekker and band mates have pushed their sound significantly, creating some of their most dynamic songs ever recorded.

Those familiar with the decade-long output of Great Lake Swimmers will recognize the thematic threads of beauty in the natural world, environmental issues and explorations of close personal ties that hold us together. The familiar versus the strange theme is also running through this record, both in the instrumentation and in the songwriting (“Zero In The City”, “I Was A Wayward Pastel Bay”).

As with past Great Lake Swimmers albums, A Forest Of Arms was recorded in several locations over the span of several months, covering extensive new territory while remaining true to the group’s refined sound. One of the unique and unusual locations was Tyendinaga Cavern and Caves in Tyendinaga, Ontario, where a number of the vocal and acoustic guitar tracks, including the main parts for "Don't Leave Me Hanging,” "The Great Bear" and "With Every Departure," were recorded amid haunting acoustics, stalactites, and circling bats.

The violins were recorded at the Heliconian Club of Toronto, while the bass and drum tracks were largely recorded at the Chalet Studio just outside of Toronto, a unique chalet-style recording space located on 40 acres of rolling hills and trails, in proximity to the shores of Lake Ontario. The pastoral and elemental nature of these spaces surfaces throughout the album.

The title, A Forest Of Arms, is taken from album track “The Great Bear,” a song inspired by a trip Dekker took to the northern rainforests of British Columbia in September 2013 with the World Wildlife Fund. It’s a pristine wilderness area that is under threat of being compromised by the construction of a pipeline, and Dekker and the group have been very vocal in their opposition to it. In a broader sense, the title is also a reference to the sense of community surrounding the Toronto-based band, as well as the band’s own growing families, exhibited in the songs “Something Like A Storm” and “Expecting You.”

Great Lake Swimmers consists of Tony Dekker on lead vocals and guitar, long time guitarist and banjo player Erik Arnesen, Miranda Mulholland on violin and backing vocals, Bret Higgins on upright bass and newcomer Joshua Van Tassel on drums. There are several special guest appearances on the album by Kevin Kane (Grapes Of Wrath) on 12-string electric guitar, as well as backing vocals on the song “A Bird Flew Inside The House.”

Recorded and engineered by their long time live sound technician Justin Shane Nace, and mixed by the wonderfully talented Howie Beck (Feist), A Forest Of Arms also marks Dekker’s 8th release of new material.In 2013, he released the solo album Prayer of the Woods,and in 2014, he released a tribute album for the artist-loving digital music distribution site Zunior on the occasion of its 10th year anniversary, entitled Tony Dekker Sings 10 Years Of Zunior. Last year saw their debut headlining performance at Toronto’s historic Massey Hall, which was documented for the Live At Massey Hall series. The band also participated in the Polaris cover sessions with their version of Sarah Harmer’s “I’m A Mountain.”

ART BERGMANN BACK IN TORONTO - FEB 13th for WAVELENGTH FESTIVAL 15

2015.01.07

Art Bergmann will be playing Friday February 13th at Sneaky Dee's as part of the Wavelength Festival 15.

Also on the show will be controller.controller (REUNION SHOW), Brides (REUNION SHOW), Plus Classic Wavelength/Toronto Tribute Sets:

WEEWERK SIGNS LEGENDARY ICON ART BERGMANN - NEW EP / TOUR THIS FALL!

2014.07.09

Legendary musician Art Bergmann hasn't been particularly active in Canada's post-millennial music world, but he's finally ready to return this fall with a new release for (weewerk).

Bergmann has apparently been in self-imposed exile on a farm in rural Alberta, but he recently emerged to record four songs at Arch Audio in Calgary. The sessions were produced by Lorrie Matheson, and the upcoming EP is going by the working title Songs for the Underclass.

His time in the country apparently hasn't changed his outlook much, since a press release notes that "Art is still full of vitriol and contempt for the status quo and he cannot stay quiet any longer."

While there have been a couple of archival releases in recent years, this is his first new material since the '90s.

Bergmann has a couple of Canadian dates scheduled. See the itinerary below, and stay tuned for more dates to be announced as EP details are made available. Tickets for the Vancouver date go on sale on Friday (July 11) at 10 a.m. local time.

GREAT LAKE SWIMMERS ANNOUNCE SUMMER SHOW DATES!

2014.05.06

While Great Lake Swimmers will be busy this Spring working on their follow up to 2012’s release New WIld Everywhere, they are gearing up to play Vancouver Folk Music Festival and Calgary Folk Festival, along with a few select shows in Canada this summer.

“The songs mix Springsteen-esque rock with stripped-down folk balladry, while the lyrics address topics like having a child, listening to the CBC while growing up in a small town and the lost dreams of a former junior hockey hotshot.” - Exclaim! Magazine

“This folk-rockin’ EP brings us five new tunes from Allingham, a Vancouver singer-songwriter with a knack for lightly Celtic-flavoured sing-alongs. The singer comes up with catchy melodies, but his strength is in the intimate stuff, like “My Old Man”, which helps explain That One Song as the kind of bedside closeness that keeps a family together.” – Georgia Straight

“Quintessential Canadian classic folk: songs about hockey, listening to the CBC, and small town life. The music is a mix of modern folk elements (Justin Rutledge, Royal Wood), but with strong roots in Springsteen inspiration. If you’re looking for a good old-fashioned folk record that pulls out all the regular stops, look no further!" - VancouverMusicReview.com

Song Synopsis:

“In Your Eyes” is about the stress and anxiety that came with the decision to bring a baby into the world (we did and it was a great choice!).

“The Zamboni Man” is about a former junior hockey great from a small Canadian town who missed an open net in the championship game. Now, he gets drunk every day and remembers missing that open net as he cleans the ice surface. “…I was king of this old, forgotten town / I skated faster and was tougher pound-for-pound / on that night their hearts were broken, frozen moment in time / I can’t forget…”

“On The Radio” is about a young kid who lives in a tiny village along the #3 Crow's

Nest highway in B.C. and listens to the CBC for company because he's lonely and

dreams of being a news reader. “…and who needs real friends with you’ve got Stuart

McLean / In my dreams I’m far away from here and when / I read the news to them,

the lonely get a friend…”

“My Old Man” is about watching my dad grow older and realizing that I am slowly

Elliott BROOD call their music Death Country – dark, gritty folk music built around whiskey-drenched vocals and lyrics evoking images of love, loss and murder. In their soul-thumping bluegrass songs, banjo keeps time to a strange and chunky angular stomp, with vicious Kentucky-hardcore acoustic guitar and somber, achingly confessional vocal harmonies.

TIN TYPE II - Track Listing:

1. Bowling Green 2:30

2. Oh Alberta 2:50

3. Edge Of Town 2:49

4. Only At Home 2:16

5. Cadillac Dust 3:14

6. Riding In Time 4:01

7. The Trail 4:17

8. Rusty Nail 3:12

9. Cranes 4:53

(weewerk) contact = Phil Klygo phil [at] weewerk [dot] com

2013.09.18

thanks!

Tony Dekker of Great Lake Swimmers Releases Solo Album and Announces Canadian Tour

2013.09.06

Songwriter Tony Dekker is taking a short break from fronting his critically acclaimed band Great Lake Swimmers to release a solo album called Prayer of the Woods, which will be released on October 8 in North America and is available for pre-order now on https://itunes.apple.com/ca/album/prayer-of-the-woods/id684994419?s=143455 (available in Europe/UK/GSA in November).Prayer of the Woods, which Dekker refers to as a “musical interlude” between Great Lake Swimmers albums, features 10 tracks: 8 new and original songs as well as covers of "Land of the Glass Pinecones" by '80s new wave act Human Sexual Response and "Carefree Highway" by Gordon Lightfoot.

Tony Dekker has announced tour dates in Canada this fall to support the upcoming album release. See below for full tour listing.

Tony Dekker will also be going with WWF-Canada (World Wildlife Fund) on a trip this month to the Great Bear region on the north coast of British Columbia. The Great Bear is a Canadian ecological treasure, one of the richest and most spectacular ecosystems on earth and home to the rare white Spirit Bear.

For the past year, it has been at the centre of a high profile national debate about the Northern Gateway Project that proposes to build twin oil pipelines from Alberta through the Great Bear, and transport oil across B.C. coastal waters. Tony Dekker is a WWF supporter and advocates for the protection of the region as a Canadian for the Great Bear.

GREAT LAKE SWIMMERS DEBUT IS 1O!

2013.03.05

"Since late 2002, Phil Klygo and I had been putting on small art and music shows in our apartment, and he brought me a beautiful demo by a shy young guy named Tony. Tony wasn’t having any luck finding a label to release it, but I thought it was one of the most perfect packages of music I’d ever heard, so I suggested to Phil that we help him out. We weren’t a record label, just a couple people who wanted to help someone put his beautiful stuff out into the world. That decision spawned the tiny mom-and-pop record label (weewerk), and was the beginning of a relationship with Tony Dekker and the evolving entity that is Great Lake Swimmers." - Germaine Koh

THE BURNING HELL RELEASE! "PEOPLE"

2013.02.26

The Burning Hell's sixth album, People, was recorded in Berlin in 2012 while most good citizens were watching the Euro Cup. As the title suggests, this record is about different kinds of people: Amateur Rappers, Holidaymakers, Realists and Barbarians all make an appearance, among others, in uptempo, wordy story-songs that dig into the details of the folks they represent.

People will be co-released on April 16 by (weewerk) and Headless Owl Records, on CD and limited-edition LP. In Europe the album will be simultaneously released by BB Island.

The Burning Hell is the alter-ego of songwriter and ukulele-slinger Mathias Kom. Loosely based in St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada, The Burning Hell has toured across various continents since 2007, playing everywhere from festivals to bars to living rooms - and once even a mental asylum in rural France. In 2012 the band broke an unofficial world record, playing 10 shows in 10 countries in 24 hours. The Burning Hell has garnered acclaim for their hyperactive live shows and their caustic yet sincere lyrics, believing as they do that songs about the inevitability of death can also be fun to dance to.

THE BURNING HELL BURN THROUGH EUROPE!

2012.05.02

THE BURNING HELL has one heck of a European tour upcoming, along with friends like Nick Ferrio and His Feelings, MoreEats, and more. In June, they will start recording their new album in Berlin. Then in July, they will drive way up north, as the song goes:

Congratulations to GREAT LAKE SWIMMERS on another mighty fine album release!

NEW WILD EVERYWHERE is the first full length album recorded in a proper studio, that being the wonderful REVOLUTION RECORDINGS located in Toronto's East end.

Great Lake Swimmers celebrate the release with an InStore performance in Toronto at SONIC BOOM RECORDS at 6:00pm tonight! (Tues, April 3rd).

Great Lake Swimmers will be in Montreal on Thursday, April 5th, for a short InStore performance at SOUTH CENTRAL STORE at 5:30pm and then have a Concert performance at L'ASTRAL later the same night. THE KINDNESS KILLERS open the show at L'Astral.

Then off to Europe the rest of April, before heading out for a May tour of Canada and United States.

THE BURNING HELL ON TOUR WITH STANLEY BRINKS & FRESCHARD

2012.02.27

The Burning Hell is heading off in the summer of 2012 for their most extensive European tour yet, during which a baker’s dozen worth of countries will be performed in, a new album will be recorded, and a world record will be broken.

But before they do all that, The Burning Hell is starting things off with a short tour of favourite haunts in Eastern Canada, including stops in St. John’s, Halifax, Sackville, Toronto, Montreal, Wakefield and Peterborough.Joining the Burning Hell on this tour will be the fabulous Freschard, a Berlin-based songwriter of French extraction, and the legendary Stanley Brinks (fka André Herman Düne of Herman Düne fame).

After leaving Herman Düne in 2006, Stanley Brinks relocated to Berlin, where he has continued to record and release music under the names André Herman Düne and Stanley Brinks, and with Kreuzberg Museum (with frequent collaborator Freschard). This will be Freschard and Stanley Brinks’ first tour of Canada, starting with a special appearance at the Lawnya Vawnya festival in St. John’s.

The Burning Hell has released five albums on Toronto’s Weewerk Records, touring extensively all the while. Driven by the baritone voice and ukulele of songwriter Mathias Kom, the band is an entertaining dance party of solemn songs about death, babies, animals and famous conferences.

----------------------------------"Mathias Kom is one of Canada’s most underrated lyricists. Even the Burning Hell’s most celebratory songs are infused with a caustic, bittersweet wit that makes you smirk. Not an easy balance to pull off." - NOW Magazine, July 2011----------------------------------

CATL. TO RELEASE NEW LP APRIL 13!

2012.02.26

catl. & (weewerk) are gonna rock your socks off with the third long-playing album from this slamming ‘rhythm & blues’ trio, ‘soon this will all be gone’! The Toronto-based band spent last summer piecing together their latest little number from two exotic locales. First, huddled in the chicken slaughterhouse that is Detroit’s Ghetto Recorders, with the amicable/surly ear of Jim Diamond. Then back in Toronto for a scorching session helmed by Jeff McMurrich at 6 Nassau, in the caring yet grubby embrace of Kensington Market. Both engineers figured heavily in the bands’ first two sonically satisfying releases.

On this latest record, catl. invited three ‘special- guest’ harmonica players; Texas bluesman Harmonica Shah, Danny Kroha (The Gories, Demolition Doll Rods) and our city's very own Pete Ross (The Speaking Tongues) to join in. Also, not to be overlooked, are the soothing vocal harmonies of Dani Nash (The Pining) - a true giant in our hearts.

Recently anointed time-keeper Andrew Moszynski (The Deadly Snakes) allows the band to get out on the road, so in 2012 we’re bringing the dance-party beat to a town near you! Whether you call it ‘rhythm and blues’, ‘rock and roll’ or simply ‘dance music’, it’s gonna make you jump up, drink up and grind down!

GREAT LAKE SWIMMERS RETURN TO QUEBEC WITH A PAIR OF SHOWS IN NOVEMBER

2011.09.29

Tony Dekker and his Great Lake Swimmers return to WAKEFIELD to play one of his favourite venues THE BLACK SHEEP INN on Saturday, November 5th for a special matinee show. Great Lake Swimmers will then showcase at FESTIVAL DIAPASON in LAVAL on Sunday, November 6th, headling a concert at MASON DES ARTS.

NOW MAGAZINE LOVES THE BURNING HELL!

Mathias Kom is one of Canada’s most underrated lyricists. Even the Burning Hell’s most celebratory songs are infused with a caustic, bittersweet wit that makes you smirk. Flux Capacitor is his first overtly autobiographical album (the first song, in fact, is called My Name Is Mathias) and features deadpan, conversational tales about early development, false moralizing and the perils of nostalgia.

Sounds like heavy material, but it’s deployed with a light touch. Even introspective ukulele ballads like the delicate Report Card are undercut by lyrical winks: “Here is my sensitive side / this is my underbelly.” Elsewhere, Kom’s newly assembled band (he recently relocated from Peterborough to St. John’s) beefs up the arrangements with upbeat horns, violins and percussion. It all amounts to a skewed cabaret-pop escapade as fun as it is sad. Not an easy balance to pull off.

Top track: Nostalgia

THE BURNING HELL play the Tranzac in Toronto on July 29, with Tony Dekker & The Pining.

GREAT LAKE SWIMMERS PREPARE TO RECORD AT REVOLUTION RECORDING & TONY DEKKER SOLO SHOW ANNOUNCEMENT

2011.06.26

Great Lake Swimmers will begin recording their follow up to 2009's Juno and
Polaris nominated album LOST CHANNELS in Toronto this summer at the superb
Revolution Recording.

Songwriter Tony Dekker will grace a few stages this
summer performing solo shows as well as joining an all-star cast of musicians to
showcase the National Parks Project on Canada Day.

Friday, August 5, 2011 as part of Wolfe Island Music Festival in
Kingston, ON. LAKE ONTARIO WATERKEEPER Presents: GREAT LAKE SWIMMERS In Concert
@ The Town Hall / with The Weather Station www.wolfeislandmusicfestival.com
www.waterkeeper.ca

PETER THE PAINTER - a trio of paintings - LITTLE KREUZBERG!

Pictures taken at Toronto, Ontario, Kanada - June 22, 2011 at a Gallery called LITTLE KREUZBERG!

If interested they are for sale: Modest Pricing For A Modest Man!

info at weewerk dot com

Sweet!

THE BURNING HELL: FLUX CAPACITOR - WESTERN TOUR ANNOUNCEMENT

2011.06.21

After a wild European tour the first half of this summer, THE BURNING HELL return to Western Canada to celebrate their new album FLUX CAPACITOR, released by (weewerk) on May 31st. With close to a staggering 75 live shows under their belts since the start of May, MATHIAS KOM and his co-horts will be in fine form as they showcase at several key festivals and at a series of club shows with WAX MANNEQUIN.The Toronto show will be a special (weewerk) presents show alongside label mate TONY DEKKER of GREAT LAKE SWIMMERS.

"Kom records swarthy urban folk songs...His latest record, Flux Capacitor is like an all-ages dance party in a hall that doubles as a viewing room for a wise-cracking undertaker who still thinks about the dog he had when he was 10." - GLOBE & MAIL "Flux Capacitor takes the cake as The Burning Hell's most joyous album...skewed, ramshackle pop, while acoustic guitar, horns and violins step to the forefront." - CHARTattack "Every song on the album is uniquely beautiful...lyrics are charmingly clever and blatantly autobiographical. Flux Capacitor is one of the greatest albums I’ve heard in quite a while." - THE SCOPE"This album is like a house party on your eardrums." - ZUNIOR DAVE"With Flux Capacitor, The Burning Hell present innocence and experience as a jazzy cabaret, allowing us to kick up our heels and drink to the glories of DeLoreans and scrunchies, the better to drown our grown-up cares." - SOUND ON THE SOUND

About FLUX CAPACITOR - (weewerk)039: (LP format available this Summer)With FLUX CAPACITOR the Burning Hell's singer, songwriter and ukulele-slinger MATHIAS KOM presents a collection of danceable songs about aging, the late 1980s, big bushy beards and pet euthanasia. And pirates! Now mostly based in St. Johns', Newfoundland, Mathias is excited to share this newest incarnation of The Burning Hell with the world on a far-ranging album release tour throughout Europe and Canada. Recorded and Produced by James Anderson in Newfoundland; Mixed by James Anderson at 6 Nassau in Toronto; Mastered by Harris Newman in Montreal.